The Rider Firm gets new efficiencies with Copilot, helping better serve their riders

The Rider Firm is a direct-to-consumer company making bike wheels and bikes for a fast-growing customer base. Maintaining a competitive web presence and an organised inventory system is crucial for delivering superior customer service.

The Rider Firm used Microsoft 365 Copilot to manage tasks and track details that would otherwise get buried in emails and chats. With Copilot in Excel, they were able to organise inventory data feeding directly into their ecommerce listings.

The Rider Firm is now more agile in making updates and daunting tasks are more manageable, freeing up employees to focus on more strategic work.

The Rider Firm, based in the UK, is a direct-to-consumer company, that makes wheels and bikes for a fast-growing customer base. The firm was founded in 2014 and now employs around 80 people across various countries, headquartered in the UK, US and Germany. With most of its business conducted online, The Rider Firm faces several challenges, particularly in maintaining a high standard of customer service, which includes keeping its web presence competitive and maintaining an organised inventory system.

A long-time user of Microsoft 365 productivity tools, The Rider Firm began deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot last year starting with their ecommerce and systems teams. They quickly adopted Copilot to help with aligning tasks and projects on a team distributed across three time zones.

Dan Qarkaj, E-Commerce Trading Manager, says “Copilot's meeting recaps are extremely helpful. I have a weekly meeting with our developers, and we go through a lot of tasks. Copilot has been great in providing key action points automatically. That has saved us a lot of time and helped us improve processes and documentation.”

It was a big job, but when I used Copilot to help, it took much less time, and it did almost as well as I would have. That turned a two-hour job into something that took only 15 minutes and probably saved me a big headache, too.

Dan Qarkaj, E-Commerce Trading Manager, The Rider Firm

Dan saved hours analysing the feedback from the team that was testing out new features for their website. “I had to pull feedback from different Word files then analyse everything before turning it into developer tasks,” he says. “It was a big job, but when I used Copilot to help, it took much less time, and it did almost as well as I would have. That turned a two-hour job into something that took only 15 minutes and probably saved me a big headache, too.”

I had the information somewhere, but I didn’t want to dig through hundreds of emails from six months ago. I decided to just ask Copilot, ‘What promos did we run in April?’ and it did an amazing job of finding exactly what I needed in seconds.

Dan Qarkaj, E-Commerce Trading Manager, The Rider Firm

Not only that, Dan has to manage and track all the details coming at him from all sorts of channels. “I get development information any way our developers choose to send it, like email, Word or chats,” he says. Now with Copilot, he can quickly find details from past conversations in minutes. “Recently, I was about to head out on vacation, but I needed to fill in a report about promos before I left” he says. “I had the information somewhere, but I didn’t want to dig through hundreds of emails from six months ago. I decided to just ask Copilot, ‘What promos did we run in April?’ and it did an amazing job of finding exactly what I needed in seconds.”

Solutions Architect Stan Bolyarov manages The Rider Firm’s systems development and integration, among other projects. Around the time they deployed Copilot, his team kicked off a project to organise information about their spares. The team needed to tag which spare was compatible with which wheel. That meant tracking the barcodes and connecting these details to listings on their ecommerce site, for thousands of line items. ”We had all the data we needed, but it was spread out over a number of large Excel spreadsheets and each of them had different formatting rules.” explains Stan.

His team used Copilot to organise the data living across all the various sources, and consolidated into a large master file, which they made sure was error-free. This massive spreadsheet provided all product specifications in The Rider Firm’s inventory and supply chain. The data was then fed into their website so customers could self serve purchasing the right spares for their wheels.

It would have been very difficult for us to do all that without help, so it’s been great having Copilot to be a really smart Excel wizard for us. Basically, it's brought down the number of people I have to ask for help in Excel to zero.

Stan Bolyarov, Solutions Architect, The Rider Firm

“It helped us build super-complicated formulas that sometimes had more than 57 IF statements,” says Stan. “It would have been very difficult for us to do all of that without help, so it’s been great having Copilot be a really smart Excel wizard for us. Basically, it's brought down the number of people I have to ask for help in Excel to zero.” That experience has Stan exploring new ways he can use Copilot in Excel, particularly in combination with its upcoming Python capabilities.

Using Copilot has radically changed how The Rider Firm operates internally and how they can support customers. Copilot in Teams has made assigning and tracking tasks much easier for developers; and Copilot in Excel streamlined its inventory and supply chain while making customers happier at the same time.

Brad Ashton, Systems Manager, sums up their Copilot experience nicely. “When you look at it across the whole team,” he says, “it’s just been so great not just with time savings but also because it lets us ask new questions of our data. You get back helpful, sensible answers as well as suggestions for what to ask next. That’s been extremely beneficial.”

Find out more about The Rider Firm and their brands HUNT Bike Wheels, Privateer Bikes, and Cairn Cycles.